Rig
Acquired2 known investors
Rig.dev built a developer experience and application layer for Kubernetes aimed at enterprises. The company's IP was acquired by Harness and its team joined Harness to work on software delivery.
Also known as Rig.dev · rigdev
Founders & leadership
Investors · 2
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Rig.dev developed a service-lifecycle platform for Kubernetes positioned as the developer experience and application layer of an internal developer platform. The product was self-hosted and installable in any Kubernetes cluster, and was intended to simplify rolling out, managing, debugging and scaling applications so that engineers would not have to work directly with the underlying Kubernetes complexity.
The stack consisted of a CLI (rig) for interacting with the platform and its resources, rig-operator as an open-core abstraction layer running inside Kubernetes, rig-platform providing a rollout engine and dashboard, Helm charts for installing the operator and platform, protobuf interfaces for API client generation, and Go and TypeScript SDKs. An open plugin framework allowed integration with arbitrary infrastructure, with default plugins covering deployments, cron jobs, service accounts and ingress routes, plus simple CLI commands for wiring the platform into CI/CD pipelines. The core project was released under the Apache 2.0 license.
After roughly two years of operation, Rig.dev announced that Harness had acquired exclusive rights to its intellectual property and that the team had joined Harness to work on software delivery; the main open-source repository was subsequently archived and set read-only in March 2025.
Business model
Open-core: the operator and surrounding tooling were published under the Apache 2.0 license, with a self-hosted platform offering (rollout engine and dashboard) layered on top and installed into customers' own Kubernetes clusters.
Traction
The core open-source repository accumulated roughly 1,100 stars, 50 forks and over 1,150 commits, and the company maintained a set of related repositories including SDKs, Helm charts and GitHub Actions. The company self-reported around 10 employees and referenced customers, partners and a community in its closing announcement.
Latest developments
Harness acquired the exclusive rights to Rig.dev's IP and the team joined Harness to work on software delivery; Rig.dev's website now serves only that announcement, and the rigdev/rig repository was archived as read-only in March 2025.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Positioned in the internal developer platform, DevOps and platform engineering space; the acquirer, Harness, is described on Rig.dev's site as a leader in DevOps and platform engineering.
Combined an open-source, self-hosted Kubernetes abstraction with a plugin framework designed to let teams customize the platform for any infrastructure, alongside a developer-facing rollout engine, dashboard and CLI rather than requiring direct manipulation of Kubernetes primitives.
Technology
A Kubernetes-native platform written primarily in Go, comprising a CLI, a Kubernetes operator implementing the abstractions, a rollout engine and dashboard, Helm charts for installation, protobuf-defined APIs enabling client generation, Go and TypeScript SDKs, and an extensible plugin framework with built-in deployment, cron job, service account and ingress-route plugins.
Go-to-market
Open-source distribution through GitHub, Helm charts and a Homebrew tap, supported by developer-oriented content marketing on DEV Community and a company blog, setup guides and documentation, and a community Slack channel for support and development questions.
Enterprise engineering organizations running Kubernetes, and platform teams building internal developer platforms for their application developers.
Geography
Listed its location as Aarhus, Denmark.
History
Rig.dev raised a $2.2 million pre-seed round and assembled a team to build a developer experience and application layer for Kubernetes for enterprises. It published developer content and open-source releases from 2023 onward, ran an active GitHub organization through 2024, and then ended its independent operation when Harness acquired exclusive rights to its IP and the team joined Harness. The main rig repository was archived on 24 March 2025.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 3
launches, deals, and filingsThe rigdev/rig GitHub repository, containing the Rig CLI, operator and platform, was archived by its owner and made read-only.
Rig.dev announced that Harness acquired the exclusive rights to its intellectual property and that the Rig.dev team joined Harness to work on software delivery. The company described its independent journey as having come to an end.
Rig.dev stated it raised a $2.2 million pre-seed round, used to build a team developing a developer experience and application layer for Kubernetes for enterprises.
$2.2M source ↗
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Rigrig.dev · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Rig do?
- Rig.dev built an open-source developer experience and application layer for Kubernetes; its IP and team went to Harness.
- Who founded Rig?
- Rig was founded by Christian Leth-Espensen.
- Who are Rig's investors?
- Rig's investors include byFounders, Dreamcraft.